How program/organizational structure shapes the performance and sustainability of student led co-curricular community service program John Sarvey, Executive Director, School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University [j.sarvey@neu.edu]
Keywords: Organizational structure, student led service, co-curricular service, sustainability, programmatic model
Track: Organizational change and sustainability
Format: Poster presentation
Summary Robust, high-quality, and consistent student led co-curricular service programs are a critical element of overall institutional civic engagement. While service-learning courses provide the opportunity to go deeper with analysis and reflection and convey faculty guidance to students, service-learning will not constitute the primary platform through which students engage in long-term (i.e., 1-4 years of sustained, regular involvement in a particular volunteer opportunity). Most students will be much more likely to sustain their involvement if serving within a social structure, like a co-curricular service program.
An informal assessment of student led, co-curricular community service programs reveals a strong correlation between program strength (quality, sustainability, capacity to engage, and outcomes) and program structure. Nearly all programs assessed as “strong” share a common organizational / programmatic model. The intent of this session is to invite examination of the model and to help inform a research design to test the hypothesis that this model is a key contributor to program strength and consistency.
Additionally, we are in the process of developing an organizational change/development program for institutions interested in developing or adapting this model for their community service program. Institutions that sign up will be assigned a pair of consultants to help implement the model. We are interested in integrating a participatory evaluation effort as part of this capacity-building program.
A strong, broad base of students engaged in a high-quality service program helps build a critical mass of student interest and demand for service-learning courses on campus. Securing faculty and administrative support for service-learning is much easier when students are asking for it and course enrollments in service-learning courses are high. Research to confirm that there is a particular organizational/programmatic model that contributes substantially to program strength can contribute to advancing the field.
References There were no references provided with this proposal.
To access materials from this session please click on the file link(s) below:
How program/organizational structure shapes the performance and sustainability of student led co-curricular community service program
John Sarvey, Executive Director, School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University [j.sarvey@neu.edu]
Keywords: Organizational structure, student led service, co-curricular service, sustainability, programmatic model
Track: Organizational change and sustainability
Format: Poster presentation
Summary
Robust, high-quality, and consistent student led co-curricular service programs are a critical element of overall institutional civic engagement. While service-learning courses provide the opportunity to go deeper with analysis and reflection and convey faculty guidance to students, service-learning will not constitute the primary platform through which students engage in long-term (i.e., 1-4 years of sustained, regular involvement in a particular volunteer opportunity). Most students will be much more likely to sustain their involvement if serving within a social structure, like a co-curricular service program.
An informal assessment of student led, co-curricular community service programs reveals a strong correlation between program strength (quality, sustainability, capacity to engage, and outcomes) and program structure. Nearly all programs assessed as “strong” share a common organizational / programmatic model. The intent of this session is to invite examination of the model and to help inform a research design to test the hypothesis that this model is a key contributor to program strength and consistency.
Additionally, we are in the process of developing an organizational change/development program for institutions interested in developing or adapting this model for their community service program. Institutions that sign up will be assigned a pair of consultants to help implement the model. We are interested in integrating a participatory evaluation effort as part of this capacity-building program.
A strong, broad base of students engaged in a high-quality service program helps build a critical mass of student interest and demand for service-learning courses on campus. Securing faculty and administrative support for service-learning is much easier when students are asking for it and course enrollments in service-learning courses are high. Research to confirm that there is a particular organizational/programmatic model that contributes substantially to program strength can contribute to advancing the field.
References
There were no references provided with this proposal.
To access materials from this session please click on the file link(s) below: